Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
La Fille aux yeux d’or · French with an independent close English translation
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English Page · Branch 58 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 241–250
French
p. 118- Ha! dit-elle, de là vient ma perte. J’ai mis dona Concha entre la peur d’une mort immédiate et une colère à venir. J’avais une curiosité de démon, je voulais rompre ce cercle d’airain que l’on avait décrit entre la création et moi, je voulais voir ce que c’était que des jeunes gens, car je ne connais d’hommes que le marquis et Christemio. Notre cocher et le valet qui nous accompagne sont des vieillards…
- Mais, tu n’étais pas toujours enfermée? Ta santé voulait…
- Ha! reprit-elle, nous nous promenions, mais pendant la nuit et dans la campagne, au bord de la Seine, loin du monde.
- N’es-tu pas fière d’être aimée ainsi?
- Non, dit-elle, plus! Quoique bien remplie, cette vie cachée n’est que ténèbres en comparaison de la lumière.
- Qu’appelles-tu la lumière?
- Toi, mon bel Adolphe! toi, pour qui je donnerais ma vie. Toutes les choses de passion que l’on m’a dites et que j’inspirais, je les ressens pour toi! Pendant certains moments je ne comprenais rien à l’existence, mais maintenant je sais comment nous aimons, et jusqu’à présent j’étais aimée seulement, moi je n’aimais pas. Je quitterais tout pour toi, emmène-moi. Si tu le veux, prends-moi comme un jouet, mais laisse-moi près de toi jusqu’à ce que tu me brises.
- Tu n’auras pas de regret?
- Pas un seul! dit-elle en laissant lire dans ses yeux dont la teinte d’or resta pure et claire.
- Suis-je le préféré? se dit en lui-même Henri qui, s’il entrevoyait la vérité, se trouvait alors disposé à pardonner l’offense en faveur d’un amour si naïf. - Je verrai bien, pensa-t-il.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 119“Ah!” she said. “From that comes my ruin. I placed dona Concha between the fear of an immediate death and an anger to come. I had a demon’s curiosity; I wanted to break this circle of bronze that had been traced between creation and me; I wanted to see what young men were, for the only men I know are the marquis and Christemio. Our coachman and the servant who accompanies us are old men...”
“But you were not always shut away? Your health required...”
“Ah!” she resumed. “We went walking, but during the night and in the country, on the bank of the Seine, far from the world.”
“Are you not proud to be loved in this way?”
“No,” she said, “no longer! Although well filled, this hidden life is only darkness in comparison with the light.”
“What do you call the light?”
“You, my beautiful Adolphe! You, for whom I would give my life. All the things of passion that were said to me and that I inspired, I feel them for you! During certain moments I understood nothing of existence, but now I know how we love, and until now I was only loved; I did not love. I would leave everything for you; take me away. If you wish it, take me as a toy, but leave me near you until you break me.”
“You will have no regret?”
“Not a single one!” she said, letting it be read in her eyes, whose tint of gold remained pure and clear.
“Am I the preferred one?” Henri said within himself; if he glimpsed the truth, he then found himself disposed to forgive the offense in favor of so ingenuous a love. “I shall see clearly,” he thought.
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 241–250
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Honoré de Balzac’s The Girl with the Golden Eyes turns Paris into a charged study of wealth, appetite, spectacle, secrecy, possession, and power. This exact page-aligned Literary Fiction edition presents the novella’s continuous movement in French with an independent close English translation prepared by Diotimos Editions.
Historical Text and Translation
The French reading text follows the 1843 Furne edition as presented in the Furne corrigé transcription at eBalzac and is checked, where needed, against the Gallica image of the volume. The original hierarchy, dedication to Eugène Delacroix, continuous sectioning, and closing 1834–1835 dateline are retained.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent close translation directly from the French. Meaning, agency, logic, degree, reference, image, repetition, and ambiguity take precedence over elegance; Balzac’s clause order and long accumulations remain wherever grammatical English can bear them.
Rights
Balzac’s French source work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.